


The Moments Between

by squid (triesquid)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:32:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triesquid/pseuds/squid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the moments between that are the most important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moments Between

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for: "Thirty Eight Minutes", "Hot Zone", "The Siege Part I", "The Siege Part III", "Intruder", and "Trinity"...maybe. Most of the episodes listed, not so much spoilerish as that's the episode that inspired it...in order of appearance, so it's easy to follow.
> 
> It's sappy and too sentimental, but the idea of breaking things up into easily categorized "times" kept running through my mind—hence, this. 
> 
> The "extra heads" comment actually originated with one of my students when I said that they were looking at me like I'd grown a sixth head. Ballsy critter piped right up with "Yeah, 'cause the extra four were normal." 
> 
> Thanks to my very tolerant beta, whee.

The first time had been little more than a hard hug and a brush of lips across his jaw. Adrenaline afterburn and the joy of surviving another day. It had been quick and left a questioning shiver-echo-touch that begged to know whether that had actually  _happened_  or if it had been a too-visceral daydream.  
  


* * *

The second time had been late at night—or early in the morning depending on one's perspective—when he had been shaking with aftershocks of fear, sick from the fight or flight of it all, and his door had opened and a solid, warm body had crawled into his bed, holding him, soothing the tremors until sleep stole him away.  
  


* * *

The third time had been frantic, filled with guilt and the need to do something more— _be_  something more—to save the people he knew and the ones didn't know and knowing that he was failing to do either.

He couldn't even save the man in front of him from himself:  from his own doubts and fears and the guilt that was plain on his face.

So he did the only thing he could do.  
  
He kissed him.  
  
And it wasn't a daydream that had become a little  _too_  real.  
  
It was a blue-satin slick-slide of tongue and lips and fingers buried into soft, soft hair.  
  
And it ended with them twined about each other, mourning those that they had lost or  _may_  lose. Crying for themselves. That they were left. That they had to find a way to save those that were left.  
  


* * *

The fourth time had been when they had all been running on less-than-ten hours of sleep over two weeks. Panic sharp on his tongue, he had gone looking, searching, wanting to explain.  
  
To say everything that he hadn't had time for.  
  
And he had found him in his quarters, not far off from full-on kicky-screamy-tired and angrier than he had ever seen.  
  
He tried to apologize, tried to kiss him. Show him how much he cared when the words wouldn't come out.  
  
He got a black eye out of the encounter, and the belief that—whatever these times together were—they were over.  
  


* * *

The fifth time had been during their sojourn back to Earth. A chance encounter in a restaurant in Chicago.  _But, really, how coincidental can that be?_  
  
Maybe he had seen him out of the corner of his eye.  
  
Maybe Murphy—bastard that he was—was just yanking his chain.  
  
Maybe sharing the gene meant that they were really a part of each other.  
  
But he had sat down next to him and bumped shoulders. "Hey, Rodney, fancy meeting you here."  
  
And Rodney had looked at him like he had grown a sixth head—'cause the four extra were normal by now. "John, can we just go—back to where you're staying?  Or I'm staying?  And fuck each other senseless so that we  _maybe_  feel like things are right again?"  
  
And John could only agree because Rodney was right. Coming back to Earth had been a mistake. Trying to step back into this world that didn't know how close they were to constant obliteration was making it all worse, whatever the "all" was.  
  
On Atlantis it had been, not  _easy_ , but—more direct maybe. They had ceased to be grunts and geeks and aliens. They had become family. They fought with each other, but they also knew who they were  _really_  fighting against and didn't take too much offense at harsh words.  
  
And being here, on the planet that had birthed them all, had skewed everything—made it sticky and easily misinterpreted and re-imposed ridiculous ideas about proper places and paths.  
  
He wanted to go home.  
  


* * *

The seventh time had been after Rodney had blown up five-sixths of an alien solar system that was, luckily, already emptied by the Ancients' fuck up.

John blamed himself.

Rodney blamed himself.

Hell, _everyone_ was blaming themselves.  
  
But that didn't matter, not really.  
  
What mattered was the coolness with which he had treated Rodney's heart-felt apology and promise to win his trust back.  
  
He really was a bastard at times.  
  
He found himself in front of Rodney's quarters, and John felt an echoing sting in his left eye where Rodney had hit him all those months back.  
  
The door slid open before John had the chance to knock or change his mind and leave.  
  
Rodney was there, in front of him:  warm and alive and resolute.

"You never lost my trust, Rodney."

John kissed his obnoxious mouth, and John knew that there wouldn't  _be_  a next time; there wouldn't  _have_  to be because this was how it was going to be for a very, very long time. 


End file.
